


how sweet this, my salvation

by anetherealmelody



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Adding more tags as we go, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Pre-Canon, Pre-War, They all grow up together, techno and tommy are brothers, techno left, tommy finds tubbo, wilbur finds tommy and tubbo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27817039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anetherealmelody/pseuds/anetherealmelody
Summary: Tommy cannot fathom why he woke up one morning to find Techno gone. Nor can he understand what he is meant to do without him, alone.What a horrifying word.And he is alone, for the space of a long, exhausting year, until a young man with a beanie watches him watch a boy with brown hair rob a local market.He copies the boy, robs the market, and accidentally scores something worth much more than a loaf of sugar bread—a family.
Relationships: Dave | Technoblade & TommyInnit, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 27
Kudos: 201





	how sweet this, my salvation

**Author's Note:**

> I keep doing this to myself and I don't know whyyyy lol. Another WIP, oh joy. 
> 
> This is basically a pre-canon narrative. It is principally told from Tommy's POV. It revolves around them finding each other, growing up, dealing with their respective pasts, etc. I'm not sure how long it will be, but I'm thinking at least 20kish words, probably? We'll see, I suppose.

It starts with an onion, as most things do.

He doesn’t even _like_ onions because he is a Big Man, and Big Men don’t cry when they see a _fruit_. Or a…a vegetable, or whatever the hell an onion is. 

It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care. He couldn’t care less. 

…except he _does_ care. A lot. He cares because he despises onions with a vehement passion unmatched by his hatred of men or his hatred of the color orange—or even, dare he say it, his hatred of fireworks. 

After all, onions make him cry. 

Big Men don’t cry.

Of course, when pressed—if anyone were around to press him; if anyone ever wanted to—he’d scowl and say that he’s never cried in his life, that tears are for Small Men and Lesser Men, that he couldn’t dream of succumbing to something so disgusting. 

But there are hard things in life. Things that compel one to cry.

Like onions. 

He’s walking through the city with his hood pulled low over his face. He cannot afford to be seen. He isn’t supposed to be here, after all—he isn’t supposed to be anywhere. 

He’s supposed to be with someone he’d long stopped caring for, long stopped crying for. 

And…maybe he still cares, on lonely mornings when he cannot manage to shove away the pangs of desperation—the pangs that cry for companionship, for friendship, for _brotherhood_ —when he cannot bear to picture the rest of his life like this: longing, regretting, alone.

And…maybe he still cries, when midnight winds creak the rusty doors he and his brother had built—before his brother had disappeared, before his brother had _left_ —and scare the life out of him. Maybe he cries every night, every moment he is alone, because he is scared and terrified and so, so, so tired.

But, no.

He doesn’t.

Because he doesn’t care. His brother left, and that’s—that’s fine. He doesn’t care, and he certainly doesn’t care enough to cry.

He doesn’t cry, see. It’s not in his nature. It’s not in his DNA. He holds himself tall and faces each day with the countenance of a warrior—though it is the countenance of a child, because he is only eleven—for every dawn signals the beginning of a battle, and every dusk signals the endless cycle of a lifetime of war. 

It’s with a devastating anger, then, that he is faced with a bitter truth: even he, in all his young, indignant, fierce glory, succumbs to the unforgiving, lethal potency of a fruit. 

Vegetable. Onion. Whatever.

Despite his coat, the bite of the wind is cold against his arms. Goosebumps rise on his skin, and he forces them down. Indeed, such a thing is anatomically impossible, but he forces that down, too—thoughts are not always truth. Goosebumps are not entirely invincible. 

It is possible, he muses, as ducks into the market—it is packed to the brim; he vaguely notices one other boy’s presence, but other than that, it is full of frantic mothers, weary fathers, and squealing children—that he is dealing somewhat with the adverse consequences of heat, food, and sleep deprivation. He is only eleven, of course, so his mind works a bit more along the lines of— _I’m going insane. I’m cold. I’m tired. I’m hungry. I’m going insane. I’m cold_.—so on, so forth. But the fact remains. Goosebumps are only to be trifled with if one is thoroughly out of their mind. 

He thinks he might just be. 

Especially when, to his utter dismay, he picks through his ratty coat pockets to find only two iron nuggets.

His eyes widen. He nearly rips his coat off right in the middle of the store to scour for more—for there _must_ be more; he knows without a shadow of a doubt that he had at least six when he left the house; he has been saving for this trip for two weeks—but rationality grasps him with it’s flimsy hands just in time. 

Removing his coat _right in the middle of the store_ was really not something he should do.

Not his best idea, given his need for complete anonymity.

Granted, he is not known for the quality of his ideas. He is not known at all, actually—that is how it must be, that is how it must stay—but if he _were_ to be known, it would certainly be for his _poor_ ideas, and not any good ones. 

A slight flush creeps onto his pale, hollow cheeks as he adjusts the coat back into place. He glances around the market hall to ensure no one has seen, but no one had been looking—no one is ever looking—so he exhales his relief. 

Two nuggets, then. That’s all he has on his person; that is what he will have to deal with. 

He doubts—with a strange wistfulness—that anyone would notice his loitering about, but his predisposition for caution is, at this point, so deeply engrained into his body that his feet are moving before his mind directs them to. He passes the rows of fragilely frosted cakes and the towers of gooey chocolate cookies and the crumbly pumpkin pies; he passes the stew and the fish and the meat and the fruits and the vegetables. The former bunch he could not afford, try as he might to summon the goods to his pocket with his eyes; the latter bunch he could scrape together on his own time, without the expenditure.

With _five_ nuggets, he had planned to purchase two watermelon. He’d then planned to take them to the Merchant three blocks down the street and hopefully trade them for watermelon _seeds_. His brother’s supp—no, _his_ supply of crops—had entirely vanished following last month’s storm. Watermelon wasn’t vital to survival, but it _was_ beneficial. It didn’t ruin the soil, and it was easy enough to maintain as long as the ground stayed hoed and the water nearby stayed plentiful. Watermelon took up less space, too, as did pumpkins. It was easy. It was fool proof. There were no tricks to farming watermelon, like there were for, say, potatoes. 

If only his brother had taught him those tricks. If only his brother had stayed a little longer, stayed a _lot_ longer—if only he had never left— 

He pushes the thoughts away, teeth gritting in irritation.

None of it matters, anyway: two watermelon sell for five nuggets, but one watermelon sells for three nuggets, and he does not have either of those quantities. He only has two.

He hadn’t had a fall back, but he crafts one now, as quickly as he can. He does not need sugar, nor wheat—he does not need pumpkins, nor can he manage potatoes. 

He resigns to perusing the vegetables.

That is when he sees the boy he had noticed earlier. 

The boy looks about his age, with a mess of brown hair and legs so skinny it’s a surprise he hasn’t outright toppled over. That isn’t the only surprise, though—his skin is ashen and vacant; his eyes wide and gazing at the crate like it holds a galaxy of golden stars, not a group of yellow onions. He doesn’t wear a hood, which is surprising, too—for his mouth is parted slightly with desperate desire, and Tommy knows that look all too well. 

Tommy knows that _boy_ all too well, really—in circumstance, if not in acquaintance.

He doesn’t know why he does what he does, but he knows why the boy does what he does—glancing over his shoulder with the subtlety of a flaming blaze, pursing his lips in rabid determination, pushing to his tiptoes, snatching an onion from the crate, folding it into his rickety sleeve, uncaring that it bulges oddly, obviously.

Hunger.

That is the motive.

Tommy understands on a bone deep level.

The fact that the boy chose, of all things, an _onion_ …well, Tommy does not find that so justifiable. But, he supposes, a full stomach is a full stomach, and, with the right resources onion might not taste so horrible.

The boy sneaks from the shop. Tommy turns and watches him go. 

He is not noticed. 

Tommy understands that, too. They are never noticed.

It is then that that vile, reprehensible, infinitely appealing truth takes hold of him.

_You are never noticed._

He glances at the pastry row. 

He can not summon things with his eyes. Indeed, he can not summon things at all. 

But maybe…maybe if that boy could do what he’d just done, Tommy could do it, too.

_You are never noticed_. 

It has always been a curse. 

Maybe it is a blessing. 

///

His plan is not disturbed. 

It goes flawlessly. It goes effortlessly. 

It goes like this.

There is a blonde, kind-faced young woman working the register, but, after a moment, a customer requests a flower bouquet. She turns around to make it. 

It goes like this. 

There is a patient sunglass-ed man who happily chatters with three of the employees, drawing all attention to the fruit section. 

It goes like this. 

He sneaks to the pastry section, because if there’s one thing about him, it’s that he is no idiot, he is a Man, and Men do not do things half way. Men do what they want and get what they want, and he does not want a bloody onion. He wants a loaf of sugar bread. 

Well, he _really_ wants a cookie, but he isn’t entirely brainless. A cookie won’t last an hour. He tucks the sugar bread in the folds of his coat.

It goes like this.

He sneaks out of the shop. He finds the world dripping with new rain.

It goes like this: perfectly.

He is not surprised. 

He is not surprised, because he was not noticed, and he is _never_ noticed.

_You are never noticed._

He presses against the brick walls, hoping to stay out of the downpour, hoping to stay in the shadows.

_You are never noticed_. 

It goes like this:

He is almost entirely correct.

He is focused on his watering mouth and on the euphoria dancing in his chest; on the need to get home as quickly as possible. On the conflicting need to devour it all at once and savor it forever and not eat it, ever, at all, because he will never get anything like this again in his entire life, and he does not want it to go away.

He is no longer focused on the market.

There is a beautiful, kind woman still arranging flowers. There is a sunglass-ed man still talking brightly to his acquaintances. 

But there is a young man—seven, maybe eight years older than him—who wears a beanie, and watches through the window with gentle heartache on his face. There is a young man—seven, maybe eight years older than him—who wears a beanie, and knows that, even with his extra years of life, his life has been nowhere— _nowhere—_ as challenging as the boy with the sugar bread. There is a young man—seven, maybe eight years older than him—who wears a beanie, and stares after the child long after he has disappeared from sight, pondering the unjustness of the world and the harshness of reality, wondering why the universe’s gods allotted _him_ a sheltered, safe, happy childhood, while the universe’s gods allotted that child _nothing_.

There is a young man—seven, maybe eight years older than him—who wears a beanie, and decides, that day, that moment, that that boy with the sugar bead shall never want for anything again.

There is nothing left for him in this city, anyway. 

///

He slumps down the street, drenched despite his valiant efforts at darting under only covered canopies and slanted roofs, clutching the loaf of sugar bread to him like a bible on a death bed—like it is his salvation. 

Maybe it is. 

Every parcel of his attention is granted to the bread. A couple feet in front of him, every parcel of someone else’s attention is granted to an onion. 

Neither of them see it coming. 

And maybe they should have. Maybe they shouldn’t be so concerned with trifles like _onions_ and _coats_ and _nuggets_ and _rain_. 

But they are children, and until children learn the meaning of _love_ , they are condemned to their own world. They _live_ in their own world, yes, but they _are_ their own worlds. They care for little else, they notice little else than their own needs and wants and dreams and goals. 

Food is no trifle, anyway, so they can hardly be blamed. 

They crash into each other—one’s forehead smarting, the other’s shoulder crying out in pain. One is much taller than the other, after all. 

The loaf of sugar bread is collateral damage.

It ends up in a puddle on the floor, completely drenched, completely soaked, completely irretrievable. It dissolves before their eyes. 

For a long moment, the boys can only stare.

He wants to yell. He wants to shout and scream and curse the universe, because he is starving and he is desperate and he is _alone_ —

_You are never noticed_. 

—and he is never noticed. Not by his brother. Not by people. Not even, it seems, by the universe. After all, how could the gods—in all their perfect glory and purity of conscience—look down upon him and deem this _right?_ Look down upon him— _him_ —and deem this _fair?_

But he is too tired to scream. He is too tired to put up a fight. Exhaustion, world-weariness, has been building for days, weeks, months—almost an entire year, dated back to the day his brother left him all alone. 

He closes his eyes. 

He is tired. He is tired, and he is hungry, and he is sad, and he is so, so disappointed. 

His heart sputters, stops, and sinks. 

He opens his eyes, because he needs to see to make his way home, to discreetly make his way through this city where if you are punished if you are caught homeless, if you are caught parentless. Where being on your own is shameful, is a disgrace, because the government long ago decided it so.

He opens his eyes, but he does not move.

The boy has surprised him again.

He holds in one hand the soggy, ruined loaf of bread. He holds in his other his onion—and, with a look of absolute devastation, of absolute sadness he extends it forward.

Tommy stares. 

The boy nods, and shakes his hand a little, as if his offer will expire if Tommy does not take him up on it soon. 

But, upon looking closer, Tommy realizes, _no_. That isn’t it at all. Rain is falling in loud, overwhelming sheets, and the boy’s hand is shaking not because he is impatient but because he is cold, and because he is crying. Silent tears, drowned out in a world too big for two young boys, in a world too big to ever notice them, too big to ever acknowledge them. 

This is the boy’s only food in Ender knew how many days, and he is offering it up. 

He is offering it up to _Tommy_. 

The world is too big to ever notice them, because they are both insignificant. They are both small. 

But, maybe…maybe they are small enough to notice each other. 

_You are never noticed._

The boy pushes the onion into his hand.

Tears spring into Tommy’s eyes.

Tears only from the onion, of course—it’s contact with his skin burns his eyes. He’s always hated onions. Stupid things. Offering nothing by way of taste or fulfillment or flavor and demanding so thoughtlessly _tears_ in return. 

(He clutches the onion to his chest.)

With a final, crushed look at the onion, the boy sets the loaf on the sill beside them and turns to walk away.

He doesn’t know why he does it. He doesn’t know what strange force compels him—maybe it is the onion, maybe it is his conscience, maybe it is some deep, desperate desire for companionship, for friendship, for _brotherhood_ —but he does it nonetheless. 

“Wait,” he calls.

The boy falters, stills. 

He opens his mouth one, twice, trying to come up with anything to say. 

He cannot. He resorts to what he knows. 

“This is way too much food for one person,” he says, because false levity is the only way he’s ever dealt with his emotions. Shoving truth aside, replacing it with bravado. It has not failed him yet; it will not fail him for many years to come. 

The boy turns to look back at him, incredulous. “It’s only the size of my fist! There were some in there _twice_ the size!”

“Why’d you pick this one, then? If you’d have taken a bigger one, we’d’ve had a bigger meal.”

The boy inexplicably flushes, dropping his gaze down, shrugging.

Tommy frowns. 

“You just said it was way too much food,” the boy mumbles after a few confusing moments. His ghastly pallor slowly returns, replacing the previous flush. “Now you’re sat talking about bigger meals. Pick a story.”

Tommy does.

“It’s way too much,” he says, nodding decisively. 

The boy looks up, eyebrows furrowed, catching Tommy’s words from before. “What do you mean— _we’d’ve?”_

“How old are you?” Tommy asks.

The boy’s forehead scrunches. “You’re giving me whiplash. What are you on about?”

“Your age, obviously.”

“No, why are—” The boy sighs,. “I’m eleven.”

“Me too. When’s your birthday?”

“I don’t see how this is—”

“Oh, come on. When is it?”

“Next month,” the boy says, crossing his arms.

Tommy scowls. 

The boy brightens considerably. “I’m older than you, am I?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tommy says, and spins the onion ‘round in his hands. “I’m taller.”

The boy smiles a little. “I’m Tubbo,” he says. 

Tommy blinks. “Is that like a—a religion, or something? Or a cult? Or a—”

The boy rolls his eyes. “It’s my name.”

“It’s weird,” Tommy says. 

“Thanks,” the boy—Tubbo—says dryly.

“I’m Tommy,” he says, a little awkwardly.

“I’m glad,” Tubbo says. 

Tommy scrunches his nose. “What kind of response is that?”

“Not a good one, probably. I was just thinking that if we stayed here much longer, we’ll be shot, and it was a bit distracting.”

“I have a knife, you know.”

“How could I have possibly known that?” Tubbo asks.

“I don’t know, but I do. Have one, I mean. And I’ll stab people.”

Tubbo frowns. “That’s probably not the best idea, Tommy.”

_“You’re_ probably not the best idea,” Tommy mutters. 

Tubbo snorts. “How can you stab someone after you’ve been shot?”

“I’ve never died before,” Tommy says. “I’ve never felt any pain, either. I think I’d be fine.”

Tubbo stares at him blankly, looking so utterly confused that Tommy wants to laugh.

Tucking the onion into his pocket, and securing the loaf of bread in his free hand, he starts away. “Come on, then. It’s not too far ’til home.”

“Home?” Tubbo echoes.

“Well, what’s left of it, I guess. Walk with me.”

And, despite his confusion, Tubbo does without hesitation.

**Author's Note:**

> If you feel so inclined, feedback really, really makes my day! Either way, thank you so, so, so much for reading! <3


End file.
